The Great Chozo

Date:6/19/2004 5:37:28 PM Author:MTLT_17 Hey Modders, Now I know most of the interchanges have been on elevated style. Well here is a ground level stack. I think is quite fesible. Now sorry for the poor quolity of MS Paint but it was all I had. So here it is: Tell me what ya think. -MTLT quote> I am WAAAAYYYY ahead of you MTLT. Be patient and you will see. TGC

Red,

Date:6/16/2004 7:47:42 PM Author:DuskTrooper Is there also going to be a diagonal stack? quote> Yes, Yes, Yes, I have said this several times, there are many versions, however I only showed one. I guess that is apparently a cardinal sin these days. NOTE: PEOPLE PLEASE READ THE POSTS I don't want to have to answer the textures question and respond to the comments since I have said it many times. So one last time and PLEASE READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!! THE TEXTURES POSTED IN THE PREVIOUS PICTURES ARE NOT FINAL. THEY ARE WHAT I PUT ON THE MODEL IN GMAX TO SEE IT IN THE GAME. THE STACKS WILL BE RESKINNED WITH THE IN-GAME TEXTURES. So PLEASE nothing more about the textures, I KNOW that they don't match. A very kind thank you in advance, The Great Chozo

Date:6/16/2004 7:12:33 PM Author:frogface or this kind of Y interchange: just an idea quote> I was also thinking of alternatives, and this is the first thing that I thought of. It still, however, involves three highways intersecting at one junction, and until our experts say otherwise, I don't think that this is possible. (my fingers are crossed, cause I really want and need some true Y intersections. TGC

Date:6/3/2004 8:11:19 PM Author:The Great Chozo Rest assured that as much as I want the Pistons to win, I don't think that they will because while they may have an answer to either Shaq or Kobe, they don't have an answer for both of them at the same time. The Pistons will unfortunately learn just how good on the basketball court the LA Lakers are. (and I hate to say that, believe me.) quote> Hmmmmm, I am proceeding to take both of my feet out my mouth . As much as I wanted the Pistons to win, I didn't think that they would. Well I was sooooooooooooooo wrong, and this is one time that I enjoy being wrong. I hate the Lakers, just about as much as I hate the Yankees, so anytime they lose, especially when it is all on the line, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!! I have some complaints, however. I really pissed me off, that every time I saw a sportscaster talking about the series, they weren't talking about how good of a job the Pistons were doing, they were talking about, What is wrong with the Lakers, or, Can the Lakers turn it around. And then one person actually said, This is unbelievable, I never in my wildest dreams thought that the Lakers would crumble like this. This is truly an unbelievable sight. He wasn't talking about the Pistons actually being BETTER than the Lakers, he was talking about how he couldn't believe that the Lakers choked. This morning I went to several sports websites to see what they were talking about, and what did I see? Yep, more of the same. Most of the articles dealt with the Lakers, and who was staying, and who was going, and most repulsive of all there was an article titled, How the Lakers lost the NBA Finals. What the hell is that. I think it is about time to give credit, where credit is due. ESPN has done it, but most of the newspapers and magazines, and other sources of info that we have access to and read here in Texas, and even further West, are still trying to kiss the Lakers overhyped asses. (Sorry if that was rude.) I don't know what yall are reading up in the Northern areas of the country, but I hope people up there have realized that the PISTONS BEAT THE LAKERS, not the LAKERS FELL APART. Well, I just wanted to pull my foot out of my mouth after what I said a few weeks ago, and give congrats to all you Piston's fans out there, and everyone up in Motown. I hope yall are still partyin'. Your team definately made my week. TGC (OK, enough of my off topic rant.)

Date:6/15/2004 7:45:30 PM Author:aerojad Date: 6/15/2004 12:48:48 AM Author: will it be possible for y-interchanges on the highways a straight highway splitting into 2 diagonal onesquote> This would be awesome if it could be pulled off.quote> Modelling this = EASY. I could pull it off in about 3 hours +or- 30 min. Modding this = ??????????. I have no idea what it would take to mod this. To make this model properly, one would have to create two diagonal highways in the top two corners, with a straight highway in the middle of the bottom border. I don't know if it would be possible to mod this into the game. If Tropod, or Redlotus say that they may be able to do it, then I will go ahead and whip this up. Otherwise, it is a very wanted dream (wanted even by myself). Chozo

Date:6/16/2004 8:52:50 AM Author:redlotus quote> Red, After you read this post, would you mind e-mailing me this model ? I want to check the sizes of your exit/on ramps. They look like the dimensions I am looking for, but I want to see them up close to double check. If you don't want to I understand, but if you do, well here are some bunnies . TGC

Date:6/16/2004 5:21:41 PM Author:BarbulaM1 Would it be possible to make the supports and texture more like the Maxis model, cause that right now stands out alot evan though it is a low quaity render.quote> As has been said before, Ignore the textures, they will be reskinned. About the supports, yes the supports will be made more like the Maxis model, and have already done so. I just didn't have a good screenshot for comparison, and I have not made a quick render of any other version but this one. This version was designed for the SimMars mod, and wil stay as is, except for , again, the textures which will be reskinned. ---------------------------- ----------------------------- WJ-Webhog: The size is only this large, because I simply rendered the entire stack as one building, and placed it on a lot for my personal scrutiny. (For those of you who don't know me, I am very particular and picky). I didn't use the cut pieces, nor did redo any of the LOD's. Rest assured that when it is final it will occupy the same dimensions as the Maxis interchange, (more or less at least). ------------------------- ----------------------------- The other versions of this that I have are a Ground to Ground stack (in both Mars style and Maxis style) as well as an Elevated to Elevated Maxis style. I am working on a Ground to Elevated model, though I don't know if it will be able to be put in the game, but that question is for more knowledgeable people, other than myself. I slapped myself on the forehead (sound familiar Tropod ) after I cut the entire thing into pieces for rendering, and only then realized that I should check the dimensions. DOH !!!!! Everything is allright except for the center concrete median, and the exit/on ramps. I will do those tonight, and then re-cut. (Hopefully I will be able to re-edit everything without having to re-cut, but right now I don't think that will be possible.) Well thanks for the feedback and comments. It helps me solidfy my decisions to know that yall are thinking the same thing. Chozo

Finally, Time Warner got me back online!!!!!! I am sorry for my absence yall, it sucks dealing with a mega-corp that owns half of the world. Anyway, on to the point................ I am going to do a few revisions to the stack before I make final renders. Here are shots for previews though. (The model was rendered on low quality) It will look great when finished. As you can see in this shot, I need/am going to resize the center median as it is too wide in my model. Now for this shot I need a little advice. I am thinking about doing it already but I wanted to ask everyone else as well. I think the exit lanes in the new stack need to be widened slightly. I don't know how much room a car takes up on the Maxis interchange while it is on the exit ramps, but I have a feeling that mine is a tad to narrow. I can make these changes very easily, but I wanted to make sure I need to do them first. I put the two interchanges together so you can compare the sizes of the exits ramps with each one. (Someone suggested early on that the ramps might be too small in my model. Well whoever you were, you were right ). Well what do you think? TGC

Date:6/8/2004 1:28:07 AM Author:FireSka Great Chozo, time warner does suck, I just moved into a new place as well, in Waco, and they take weeks and I had to keep reschedruling cause theyd come at the most inconvienent times. I don't know if they just suck in Texas or if they are like that everywhere. quote> It's not that they suck, they just have no sense of TIME. (which is funny because Time is a part of their monaker , ah I just love irony) I actually enjoy having Roadrunner as it has been more reliable than DSL or any other internet service I have had. And I AM NOT GOING BACK TO DIALUP. Honestly Tropod, I don't know how you do it . I just transferred my account to a different address, which unfortunately, I have to have someone come out and hook up ONE connection, and flip ONE switch. For some reason I can't get this person out until June 15th, AND I could do this myself, but I don't want to sit in a jail cell. So here I am patiently counting the days. And about those avenue puzzle pieces, just stop it now, it hurts that I can't use these things and I REEEAAALLLLYYYYY want them. So here is a deal Tropod, you stop teasing me with these wonderful additions, and I will buy you a Roo Burger and a Fosters . How about it.......... Yea I didn't think so, oh well. It is great work, keep surprising me. TGC

Tropod, you are KILLING me !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I sooooooooo want to download the new additions, but alas I have 8 more days until I have my internet access back at my home. Oh well I guess in the meantime I will just have to drool over this stuff. I am afraid that by the time I get online again, this mod will be as big as the game itself . Oh and the puzzle pieces are a work of pure genius. TGC (I'm about to go postal on Time Warner, damn bastards won't hook me up for another week. )

Date:6/2/2004 3:54:56 PM Author:ryanb_sc4 I tell you what - I can't wait to see this stack that The Great Chozo is coming up with. It's gonna be great! quote> I can't wait to see it either Ryan. I have no internet at my house for the next week and a half, because I just moved. I posted about this so if you read it then there is no reason for me to explain. Tropod knows my situation, and I am working on this right now, I just won't be able to get it to anyone until I get online again. If you can be patient with me right now, then I promise you will have a high quality product when I am able to send it to our resident geniuses (yall know who you are ) T.G. Chozo (gotta go make some Mars Monorail and El Stations, oh I guess I should do the tracks as well ) BTW: Red, I need to talk to you about how we are going to do some of the transit stuff for Mars. I know what we are doing with the highways, after playing with that file you sent me, but I need to ask you a few things about the other networks. I am very short on internet time right now, so if I catch you in chat while at work I will talk to you, otherwise I will send you an e-mail in the next few days. Cheers

Bud, and Ert: Both of you have very good points. I personally hate the Lakers myself, and I have been calling them the Yankees of Basketball even before this season started. I have two complaints about this argument. 1) As much as I hate the Lakers, you have to respect the athletic ability that their players have. I am an athlete myself, and am constantly playing either baseball, flag football, or pick up basketball with my friends. I know from a lot of experience that when you put a team on the field or the court, you want to put your best players out there. The off court personal lives of the players should not have any bearing on their in game skills, unless they are currently incarcerated. I have played with some people that in my mind should never have been squirted out by their mothers, and to quote a movie I disapprove of their very existence, but when you are in the game, you don't care what kind of person they are off the field as long as they can contribute to the team. Esp. if they are the best players on that team. I don't like what Kobe has done off the court, and several other players in the NBA for that matter, but when they are playing, it is quite impressive to watch. Rest assured that as much as I want the Pistons to win, I don't think that they will because while they may have an answer to either Shaq or Kobe, they don't have an answer for both of them at the same time. The Pistons will unfortunately learn just how good on the basketball court the LA Lakers are. (and I hate to say that, believe me.) 2) There was nothing in your post that would give a reader a picture of what your point of view was. You started it off by saying, Here is my analysis of the Lakers, and then followed that up with the rest of the post. I have no complaints at what Ert responded with, because that honestly was not an analysis of the Lakers. That was an OPINION of the Lakers. An analysis and an opionion are two completely different things. The fact that you are judging Kobe Bryant's position on the team based on his off court personal life, is an opinion. Just because Shaq is a genetic freak, doesn't make him an overgrown gorrilla, and even if he WAS he damn sure wouldn't be a baby one. I agree with your point on Gary Payton, and that was based on his on-court performance, so you are good on that one. Phil Jackson IS a good coach regardless of who he has coached. Just because he is coaching an All Star team doesn't make him lucky. You still have to understand the mental side of the sport, like when to switch formations, and schemes, when to sub in or out players, when to sit someone out because of foul trouble, or when to stretch them even when they are in foul trouble. This brings me to Karl Malone, and I really have no comment on this dirty guy. He is good, he has great skills, but he is dirty, and unfortunately there is dirty play in any sport. Period. So basically what I am trying to say is that, you shouldn't go off criticizing Ert for his post, because he had a valid point. What you posted was an OPINION, not an ANALYSIS. If you had started that post off with something like, Here is my opinion of the Lakers, then this wouldn't have happened. I'm not flaming you by any means, I am just trying to point out some faults in your post that led Ert to reply in the way that he did. If you are going to post an ANALYSIS, then post a true analysis that is supported by facts and performance numbers, not a bunch of opinionated sentences which are based off of the personal lives of the athletes, or their less than amicable on court behavior. Facts are facts, and opinions are opinions, be sure to make a delineation between the two next time. On a side note, I am sorry to hear about your accident, and I am glad that you are getting better. Hopefully you will be able to return to your BATting hobbies as soon as possible. Just take your time, and you will return to full health. (you gotta love that Darvoset ) I hope that this thread can return to the great project that yall have started. I have never been to Detroit, though I have studied it through my Urban Studies classes at school. I love seeing real world buildings from other cities in the game. It not only brings variety to the game, but it also brings character. I haven't posted much here, but I have been following this thread even before it was renamed the Barry Sanders Project. Lets get this back on topic. Oh I did forget one thing -- GO PISTONS, BEAT THE LACKERS (I had to quote Wolverine's sig, because that cracked me up) TGC (by the way, I hope you don't take offense from this post, I am just a third party observor pointing out some discrepancies )

Hey everyone, (For those of you who have access to the SimMars private forum, I posted this over there so if you read it, then disgregard this post.) If anyone is wondering where I have been, well real life has me by the B@@@ right now. Instead of celebrating my birthday (which was Sat. May 29th ) and Memorial Day on the lake, which is what I do every year, I had to move. I just got moved in today so I can get back to work on my comp. However, I won't have my cable turned on until June 15th (apparently a lot of people moved this weekend.) So here is the deal, I will still be able to BAT, and I will start finishing up the stack preparation, and create some new things. I won't be able to send or recieve (or even get on my favorite website ) until I get my Internet working. So if anyone needs to contact me PM me, or if you have my e-mail addy (that would be Redlotus and Tropod) then send me an e-mail, and I can check either form of communication from work. Sorry I have been away, but I set my comp. back up last night, so I will still be working, you just won't hear from me that much until I get online again. (I am typing this at my parent's for all you skeptics). I was hoping someone would be in chat right now, but that's allright, cause I still have a lot of work to do. Anyhow, I will be back as soon as TimeWarner will get their MegaCorp Ass in gear and hook me back up, until then I will be a lonely BATter who is cut off from the world. -- We had a tornado watch and then a warning last night, and we had no clue cause or cable doesn't even work on the TV, and the air channels wouldn't come in clear enough. --sigh-- I love the real world. Ok well I gotta go. Yall know how to catch me if you need me. Peace Out, The Great Chozo ( I really want the new mods, but I CANT DOWNLOAD them yet )

A few things. First, if you actually read what I posted instead of just looking at the pictures, you wouldn't have to ask if there are alternate versions. I will say this one more time. I have a ground to ground model. I am working on a non-orthagonal version (ie diagonal intersecting a straight). Two, the supports are for the SimMars version, and I have already re-edited the support to make them conform more to what Maxis created with their highway supports. I did not pick any specific interchange to model this one on. I live in Texas, and we have the best highway system in the US (this is a fact) so I drive through incredibly complex multi level stacks quite often. I simply combined all the aspects of the ones I navigate the most, and incorporated them into one model. About the size. This is going to be the same size as the normal cloverleaf. This is because of the maximum dimensions a highway intersection can be in the game. In real life the type of stack that I created, dwarfs the cloverleaf style that Maxis created, so trying to make it smaller would One) look bad because it is truncated, and Two) It would not conform to reality. I know this is a game, and reality doesn't have to play a key role, but this would just simply not look right, if it wasn't at the maximum scale possible. Tropod, and Equinox - VERY VALID POINT. If you are going to quote a post and don't need to use the images then please delete them. Some of our Simtropolites do not yet have the luxury of a high speed cable or DSL connection. Too many images cripples their loading times, so be considerate and remove any unecessary images. If you are quoting a post that has multiple images and you want to comment on what the images depict, then please just leave one image. This way loading times can be kept to a minimum, but you can still get your point accross with a visual aid. Back to BATting, Chozo

Date:5/20/2004 4:05:52 PM Author:Tropod Secondly, generally the pieces should be rendered in BAT at X:0, Y:0 [Hopefully those values are right.The height should not be changed]. Basically, the piece needs to be centred in BAT. However, the piece should be centred in Bat in such a way that it is what it will look like in the game, in its puzzle position. So if it has an off-set from the edge [as a piece as part of the whole model] then when its centred in Bat it needs to maintain this off-set from the edge [hopefully that will/does make sense?]. quote> This makes perfect sense to me, and answers my question exactly. It will take some time to slice this up, but I will do it. T, I know you have dial up, so when I send you the pieces, I will most likely send you several e-mails, so it is easier for you to download. Red, I don't know what connection you have (I assume it is cable), so I will send you as many pieces as I can send in one e-mail, and then if I have to send another I will. (This is assuming that both of you want the pieces, if only one of you wants them then let me know. I will start the bidding at 100 Simoleans jk ) I haven't talked to you guys in awhile, I hope everything is allright in your worlds. See you on the flip side. TGC

Date:5/20/2004 10:42:39 AM Author:redlotus First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being around the last few days. My company decided to send me out of the country on a business trip. I wanted to add a few things to Tropod's last post. First thing is to clarify what he's said. We don't need any models to be completely broken up so that all of the individual pieces/parts are restricted to one tile. However, the fewer pieces that span more than one tile, the easier it will be to get them into the game. This relates directly with the second thing: supports. Please try to keep each of the supports within a single tile. If it's absolutely necessary to have a few span tiles, it's not a big deal, but I personally think that this could easily be avoided. The third item is a little bit touchier. Please try to keep the on/off ramps from exitting/entering at the corner of a tile. I don't have a problem if a small part of the model hits the edge of a tile at the corner. It's just very difficult to create the path files if the middle of a ramp hits the corner of a tile. If anyone has any questions about what I've outlined above, feel free to send me a PM or give me a holler in chat. I won't be able to get into the chat rooms much this week, but I'm usually there during the evening (ST time). Thanks, -red quote> I made my model with those things in mind Red, hey after all you did teach me . There are two supports that I know will need to be moved, but I have placed the majority of them in one tile. They aren't necessarily in the center of that tile, but at least they are contained in it, and not split by the boundary. I have a question about the positioning of these things when rendering. On the bridges they were centered on the origin and only one side was needed because of the mirroring aspect of them. Well are these cloverleafs mirrored, or will ALL of the pieces be needed. Secondly, some of the pieces that will be sliced, will need to be, say, in the top right corner of the tile. So, when rendering do they need to be positioned as such, or can they simply be centered on the origin? I hope this is clear, if it is not, I will catch you in chat. Welcome back . T7T - It has been my experience that it is FAR easier to slice AFTER you have created the model. If you try to model it in pieces, you lose continuity and some pieces don't fit together correctly. I do have one word of warning about slicing. If your model is fairly complex, then when you apply a slice modifier to the whole thing, it will lag like crazy. I don't know why the slice modifiers lag like that, but they do. I have found it easier to ungroup EVERYTHING and then at each tile border, just slice individually the pieces that cross that border. This makes the slice modifier behave a little better, and is easier to work with. Chozo

Date:5/19/2004 12:56:31 AM Author:Corlian Date:5/19/2004 12:35:03 AM Author:The Great Chozo And on a side note, a Railroad should never overpass a surface road, unless the surface road is sunk below grad, and the grad of the rail remains the same as it crosses the road. So I suggest to not waste any time on this, because just simple doesn't happen in the real world. I have never seen a rail overpass a road, and I have been to the dirtiest of industrial areas in Houston, Galveston, Texas City, and other spots around the Southeast Texas coast, and have NEVER seen this. quote> I've never seen one in all of Southeast Texas, but it makes particular sense that it wouldn't exist there because of all the space. Rail overpasses don't exist at the grade we would be using here in Simcity. What I asked for is unrealistic. But rail overpasses with much much longer grade certainly do exist. When the unrealism was first brought up, I googled it and found examples in a couple cities right away, but I've seen it myself in Chicago and New York, and if I thought hard enough I could probably come up with an example in L.A. or the countryside. I wanted it because I can't make tiny little dips in the road right next to a highway, and I can't make a road overpass with short blocks, like exist time and time again in real life. I didn't want to cut one of my cities in two because of rail traffic. Sorry for asking. quote> Corlian, You don't need to apologize for asking about that. I was simply stating my opinion. Who know someone else may want this bad enough and decide to make a model. If that is the case, then more power to ya, and I won't try and stop you. That was just my humble opinion. I actually find it useful to use highways to cross rails. you can use an avenue that turns into a ground highway, which immediately elevates and crosses the rail, then immediately slopes back down and turns back into an avenue. You can have neighborhood streets connect to the avenues that cross the rails. This is a realistic solution to your problem. I use this is a number of my cities, I will get you some shots of this when I get home. Please don't be afraid to ask or request for something. You never know, you may ask for something that will turn into one of the best ideas anyone has had, but you won't know that if you don't ask. TGC

Date:5/19/2004 5:50:11 PM Author:the7trumpets I'd just like to point out that the 16x16 dimension is simply an upper limit. It is fine if an interchange is smaller than 16x16, but neither the north-south or the east-west direction can have more than 16 tiles. Great work though! I do hope you find a way to change the supports to fit better with the elevated highway support look though, otherwise it won't really look seamless in a city.quote> I was aware that the dimensions were a maximum, however, I don't think that this kind of stack can be done accurately, and aesthetically on a smaller grid. There are some intersections that exist that can be done smaller than 16 x 16, but I haven't worked on those, nor have I thought about them. It isn't a matter of finding a way to change the columns. It is a matter of me sitting down and doing it . All I have to do is make some four sided columns, and replace the octagonal ones. I could do that in an hour tops. (and don't worry about the textures as I said in an earlier post, and as I am sure you already know, those textures will be stripped and reskinned with the in game textures.) I am work right now, but when I get home I will make those changes, and save it as a seperate model. I will post a shot of the changes, and also post the ground to ground interchange as well. T.G. Chozo

Date:5/19/2004 12:41:13 AM Author:Equinox Date:5/18/2004 9:50:59 PM Author:ardecila Ardecila's interchange #2: Anyone interested? I'm probably going to do it with an earth base.quote> I'm REALLY interested in that one! The stack looks to me like a waste of space when you could be doing a lot more efficient things ... this however isn't so ... expanded. I really like this and if you smooth it out, I will be using it a lot in my cities. quote> EQ, If you think the stack I made is a waste of space, then you must think that the Maxis made cloverleaf is a waste of space as well. The dimensions of my stack are 16 x16, which is the same dimensions of the cloverleafs. They have to be those dimension, or they can't be properly put in the game.

Date:5/18/2004 10:29:28 PM Author:ardecila Wow! Great job, Chozo! I like how you moved the flyover merge out onto the level ramps. That way, the flyovers don't have to curve so sharply. The ramps look a little narrow for SC4 scale, though. A freight truck navigating that thing wouldn't look that great. Are you going to put the Maxis-style supports on it? For SimMars, it looks great, but for most people's terrestrial highways, the supports look a little too Flash Gordon-y. But it still blows mine out of the water. I look forward to driving this thing. iamrobk: I've always wanted to do this with avenues, only underground (but RedLotus proved we couldn't do such things underground). You can't make this kind of an intersection currently, so I figured I'd fill it in. I'd do it with highways, but I'd have to drop a lane to make it look good, reducing it to the capacity of an avenue interchange. I could do it with avenues, with a gray av texture. You could meld highways into it.quote> Thanks Ardecilia. I do like your avenue intersection, that is a really good idea. I put the merge or diverge of the ramps on the ramps, because in real life that is most likely where they are. This is the case here, and many other places in Texas, and the US, so that was just a natural addition. (oh and BTW, the ramps aren't level where the merge is. Once the ramps diverge from the highway, they immediately start sloping up, and the spot of the ramp to ramp diverge is sloping upward as well. The part of the ramp immediately after the diverge area has different slopes as well, depending on how high that particular ramp needs to go. See the side view of the stack that I posted, you can tell this from that picture.) Some stacks have ramps that are multi laned, but I would just have to lose a lane where in merges back to the highway for the game, so I figured I would just make them all single lane overpasses. It has to be kept as simple as possible, due to the process of getting in the game, but at the same time you have to still make it elegant, so I think I balanced the two very well. The poly count on this is actuall a lot lower than I thought it was going to be at the outset. About the supports. I probably won't change them, but the textures will change. For the Mars version, I imagine that the concrete textures will remain the same, because that is the general color of the highways I have already made. However, I think what we are going to do is just change the textures of the lanes only on the SC4 highways, and then use those new ones for the Mars highways. Redlotus posted a picture of this somewhere in the SimMars forums. As for a Rush Hour version well, the textures will be the same. After this is sliced up and the LOD's remade, and everything else that has to be done to get it ready for editing, I will most likely send it to Red. On his end the textures will stripped off, and then he will reskin them. This is a pain in the butt, so he needs some serious credit for doing that. What will happen is that he will take the textures from the game and then apply them to each piece, so the textures you see in the render will not be there for a Rush Hour version. As far as the supports go, there are numerous intersections near me and elsewhere, where the supports for the flyover areas are slightly different than the support elsewhere on the highways length. This is done mainly for an architectural distinction. I think that if Red reskins this with the Rush Hour textures, then the columns will actually look quite good in the game. They are not incredibly complex, and will add a nice look if this thing gets to a working state. Trolca, I know what you mean in your post. I was simply referring to having a ground highway and an elevated highway intersect in the game, without any added network pieces. What I was referring to is that fact that there is no coded intersection for a ground highway and an elevated highway in the game, therefore there is no S3D model to replace for that type of intersection. I am well aware that I can create an intersection between the two in the manner that you describe (although the highways leading up to it need to both be the same, either elevated or ground), and in fact I am a step ahead of you. I have other versions of this in the works, becasue we are going to need them for SimMars. I need to finish the non-orthagonal intersection, that is the diagonals. For a orthagonal intersection that looks like and X rather than a + all I need to do is rotate the whole thing 45 degrees, and resize any pieces that extend beyond the 16 x 16 boundary that these things have to fit into. For the diagonal intersection, I need to rotate one road deck 45 degrees, and then refit the necessary ramps to contort to the new shape. That shouldn't be that big of a job though. Ramp Size: The width of the ramps are the width of one lane on the highway, and believe me, I have seen flyover ramps like this in real life, that are dangerously lacking in width. (several in Houston come to mind) They may look small, but you aren't used to seeing a highway lane in the game reduced to solely its own width. As far as the questions that focus on a release date, well I have to say that I have no idea. It will probably take me two maybe three days to properly slice this up. It has to be exact, or the pieces won't look right. I have sliced up a bridge in one evening, but it wasn't a complex intersection that spanned 16 tiles square. So that is one hurdle, then I would need to refit the LOD's, and then render each piece. By looking at the picture of the overhead wireframe I am going to end up with a good 32 pieces and maybe more, so the whole LOD process and rendering proces will have to be as many times as their pieces. After that I will need to send them to someone who can reskin them and mod the S3D's. Don't forget having to mod the path files as well, that will take a considerable amount of time. After that, there will need to be some testing to see if it is correct. If everything works as it should (which it never does) then that would be the end of it. However, I am sure that a few problems will arise that may need to be fixed on my end, which could set it back another day or so, and who knows how many problems may show up. So I can honestly say that I have no idea. But I really want my Sims driving on this, so hopefully we can do it in a as short a time as possible. And on a side note, a Railroad should never overpass a surface road, unless the surface road is sunk below grad, and the grad of the rail remains the same as it crosses the road. So I suggest to not waste any time on this, because just simple doesn't happen in the real world. I have never seen a rail overpass a road, and I have been to the dirtiest of industrial areas in Houston, Galveston, Texas City, and other spots around the Southeast Texas coast, and have NEVER seen this. Whew, I think that is about it. Thanks for your comment guys and gals, I appreciate it. The Great Chozo

Date:5/17/2004 7:06:59 PM Author:joerg http://parkchicago.hyatt.com/property/imagedb/chiph/chiph_slide_lg_00.jpg width=398 border=0 name=slideImg> quote> Joerg, you should take a stab at modeling the Water Tower. That would go excellent right next to the Park building. Chozo

USA That was the Elevated - Elevated Intersection that I posted. I have a version where two Ground Highways intersect. I simply lowered it to the ground and removed any unnecessary columns, and then did a lot of vertex editing to adjust the height of the remaining columns. We can't intersect a ground highway with an elevated highway using a cloverleaf, (or at least I'm not aware of it if we can), so I wouldn't expect that type. BUT, I have some other version in the works, one of which is an elevated highway over a ground highway, with all the ramps in between the two like what you posted. I started this version just in case a miracle happens. TGC

OK everyone, sorry I have been away, I had real life to worry about. Well I am back now and am able to resume working. And here is a little gift for the mod. The all new SimMars Highway intersection: Behold None of the ramps interfere with the main decks, and there is more than enough clearance between each leve. Hayly where are you ??????? (I told you I would have this done in a month, but I ran into finals, sorry I lied. Better late than never right? ) Chozo

I hope yall don't mind if I join in on the fun as well. Red, about a month ago you sent me some Gmax scenes of a stack you were working on. I told you and Hayly that I would have one finished a month from then. Well I was a little off on the time, but I did finish it. I haven't posted it yet, so I figured I might as well do it now. This was going to be for SimMars, but I guess it can be used for Rush Hour as well. Well I added some touch up details today, but the majority of it was finished before I had to take time off for finals. All I did today was texture it. Here are the shots: (That shot was from a side angle looking toward the smaller ramps. If you saw this angle from above the highways would form an X. Here is a preview render: Well what do yall think? I am still going to use this for SimMars, but if anyone wants to use it for a Rush Hour add on, let me know. I am well versed in how to slice, set up LOD's, and assign TGI's for our S3D Editor (which is otherwise known as Redlotus ). Hope you enjoy. TGC